Marcien, Proprietary Red

Los Carneros, Napa Valley
2011

Tasting Notes

The Marcien from 2011 is an elegant alien among over-the-top natives. Barrel select Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, grown in RSV’s organic, CCOF certified Carneros vineyards, is blended to create a cuvée that could easily be described as a “Right Bank” of Napa Valley wine.

The color is a deep purple with a garnet rim. The aromas and flavors are intense and complex, with notes of bramble-berry, cassis, a touch of bayleaf or capsicum backed by spice (cardamom, nutmeg and cinnamon) and cocoa nibs. The mouthwatering finish is long and bright with just enough tannin to suggest this wine will be around for the long haul.

Point of View

Wine has become a two party system. On the right, you have the Trump-like extremists who believe wine should be big, ripe and in your face with a “give me 100 points or get off the stage” attitude. On the other side, you have the Sanders-like leftists who say rich, ripe wines are for the 1%, arguing that we must redistribute wine lists to give under-ripe grapes (that produce high acid, low alcohol beverages) a leg up.

Where did the moderates go… the ones who espouse balance, optimal ripeness, age worthiness and cuisine orientation? We, of the independent wine party, never left. It’s just that our voice has been temporarily drowned out by the sound bites of the extremists.

It is no mystery why the 100 point system was so effective. To provide a definitive number to a wine removes the mystery of buying a bottle. This wine is better than that wine because it received more points. Done deal - no argument - you have a third party endorsement to back up your purchase. The downside is that winemakers become tempted to manipulate their wine to create a pre-determined style that tends to garner higher points. It is a simple formula - pick over-ripe, use obvious amounts of expensive oak, make sure the wine is sweet, rich and stands out in a blind tasting.

The other party has a one note message: pick under-ripe grapes for lower alcohol wines. They only recognize wines that are lean and mean, sometimes sacrificing flavor in favor of their lower alcohol dogmatic platform.

I propose a third party. Let’s call it the classic or traditionalist party. We have a moderate platform with the belief that wine is created in the field and elevated in the cellar. Unlike our rivals on the right, we believe in picking our fruit at the optimal intersection of physiological (flavor) and sugar ripeness. And, unlike our compatriots on the left, we believe that if you plant the correct variety, rootstock and selection in the right environment, it will achieve optimal flavor ripeness while maintaining bright acidity and moderate alcohol without the need to pick under ripe.

Please, for the future of elegant, cuisine oriented wines, return the moderates to power! Vote for elegance. Vote for balance. Vote for flavor. A vote for Marcien is a vote for the future of wine.

A Fragrant Flake

Who doesn’t love a warm, flaky pastry stuffed with a favorite fragrant ingredient?

It seems as though every culture has a version of a meat pie - the empanada from Mexico, piroshki from Eastern Europe and the simply named meat pie from Down Under where they reign supreme at every Aussie road stop or quick market. Meat pies can be a snack or a meal and they don’t necessarily have to contain meat. The point of these small pies is to satisfy your hunger in a portable manner.

Marcien is a noble wine of delicious, fragrant complexity (just read the tasting notes). While it would fit beautifully at the table with a fine roast duck or standing rib, I wanted to take it to the land of the meat pie to show it has the versatility to hang with the casual folks.

I threw in the tuiles because I love them in their elegant simplicity and their salty, nutty perfection. They’ll go with just about any wine but are particularly delicious with the Marcien. They’re a perfect quick hunger fix to nibble on while sipping Marcien as the pies bake.

You can’t fight mother nature. In fact, you need to embrace the eccentricities of nature — as weather and climate define the character of the vintage. The winter of 2011 was wet with 130% of normal rain. A cooler than normal spring delayed bloom and reduced fruit set.

With late spring and early summer rains, cover crops were left growing in the field longer, wicking away moisture and throttling back vine vigor. The sheep gorged on lush cover crops until bud break, then the cover was mowed with minimal, if any, spading of the vine rows. If these actions did not control vine vigor completely, selective leaf pulling allowed an increase of sunlight on the fruit and enhanced air circulation.

It helped to not have a rigid mind set with a vintage like 2011. If you were fixated on making a big, powerful wine, you were destined for failure. If, however, you were more interested in expressing terroir, you embraced the vagaries of the vintage to create an elegant, flavorful, balanced and age-worthy wine.